Terrorism
and the clash of Civilizations
by
Jyoti Sahi
Art Ashram India, September 29, 2001.
(This essay is being published in a collection of essays in honour
of Fr. Michael Amalados sj, to celebrate his 65th birthday)
~ A War between Civilizations.
~ The image of the Two Cities.
~ Seeds of Chaos.
~ Art and Violence.
A
War between Civilizations.
(10/2001)
The events of the last week have raised many questions which relate
to the way in which we understand history, and the impact on its
course of that psychic energy which we call Terror. Recently many
leaders in the West, both in the United States of America, and also
in Europe, have been talking in terms of a clash between cultures.
What exactly do they mean by this idea of war that characterizes
the differences between civilizations? The concept of Civilization
has developed out of the Greek and Roman understanding of the City
State, and the values which should uphold civil society. These values
are essentially human, and so one would suppose that Civilizations
cannot be opposed to each other : they can only enrich each other,
because the human values which they represent are based on harmony
and peace.
If civilizations
are the natural expression of civil society, which is the condition
under which human beings can inter act and grow without fear of
injustice, then how do we understand the fact that there are different
forms of civilization? Here we have to again refer back to the way
in which civil society was understood by the great thinkers of the
past. Here the binding factor is supposed to be "Religion"
which itself is a term that indicates that which binds, or orders,
by establishing mutual relationships of trust and cooperation. In
the East this term "Religion" could be described in terms
of "Dharma", meaning again that which is established,
firm. Though Religion has come out of a basic aspiration in all
human beings, it has been manifested in different ways, which we
see in the many religions which Civilizations have given rise to.
Here we come into an area which it is not easy to navigate, at least
with the instruments which we traditionally have as far as dogmatic
truth claims are concerned. For example, every Religion claims that
it is The Truth, and that it has the key to Salvation. The differences
between Religions have been explained in terms of a hierarchy of
truths, or the fact that every Truth has different facets, which
are understood by individual believers in different ways. We are
confronted by the problem of religious language, the cultural nexus
into which a religious tradition is embedded.
The problem
of terrorism in the modern world is not just a question of aberrant
social behavior, but rather of the relation of minorities, or marginalized
groups, to dominant cultures. This has been aggravated by two features
of the world today : firstly globalization, and secondly the power
given to the individual through technology. In the past it would
not have been possible for a few individuals to attack and harm
a whole state in the way that is now possible with a sophisticated
knowledge of technology, and the use of modern forms of communication.
The increased importance of a global culture has tremendous power
to influence not only the minds of individuals, but also the way
in which economies function. This global culture, which we are all
trying to understand, seems to be in conflict with local cultures,
which it tends to destroy, or at least marginalize. Global culture
has itself been made possible by new forms of communication technology.
It is a very amorphous, faceless entity, which like terrorism, is
like a monster coming out of that world wide phenomenon which we
are calling "modern civilization". Globalization represents
the aggregate, or conglomerate, of many different cultures which
comprise the plurality of present day realities. It is featureless,
because it is the melting pot of many features. It has come into
existence because so many cultures have come to intermingle, and
inter-act. Terrorism is a power which is used by individuals, often
functioning in a very anarchist and even disconnected way, against
the giant which we might call globalization. Terrorism is the way
in which small, even dysfunctional elements within a civilized world
react against the whole that is believed to dis-empower, dis-associate,
or alienate certain individual sensibilities. It is a manifestation
of a kind of disease within the body politic, but like any other
disease must not be looked at as a thing in itself, but rather as
a symptom of something much deeper, which is affecting the life
and growth of the whole. Terror is diabolical, in that it throws
something apart, destroying the whole through the very contradictions
from which it has arisen. The opposite of the diabolic is the symbolic
which tries to re-unite, to hold together.
As an artist
trying to understand the way in which cultures and spiritualities
inter act in our modern world, I have been committed to an understanding
of the meeting, and coming together of civilizations both east and
west. I have been actively involved in what might be called the
cross-cultural. I have also been very deeply concerned with the
whole debate on iconoclasm. At a meeting of the World Council of
Churches held in Bossey in April,1999, on the theme "What Difference
Does Religious Plurality make ?", I was very conscious of the
fact that one of the basic cultural differences which exist between
religious systems centres round the prophetic problem of "What
is an Idol ?" When members of the Judeo-Christian branches
of Religion came into contact with East-Asian religious systems
(Vedic, Brahmanic, Buddhist, Jain and so forth), the immediate tendency,
when rejecting these forms of "civilization" was to call
them "idol worshippers". Even among the Judeo-Christian
group of Religions, among which Islam is one, the iconoclastic controversy
has been an important dividing factor. It certainly seems to be
the case that those Central Asian cultures originally belonging
to the eastern branches of the Catholic Church, that did not accept
the use of Holy Images in the fourth and fifth centuries, later
became Muslim. In fact some have suggested that Islam was at the
beginning not clearly understood as another religion, but rather
as a kind of reform within the Judeo-Christian family of faiths.
The tension over the use of images has also given rise to the split
between different denominations of Christians; for let us not forget
that Calvin, a good Augustinian in many ways, was very opposed to
the use of images.
I mention this
interest in the iconoclastic controversy because that was what brought
me to the Fathers of the Church, when I made a study of the "Defence
of the Holy Images" by John of Damascus, when I was a student
of art in London in 1963. It was this interest which brought me
into contact with Dom Bede Griffiths in that year, and finally led
to my joining him in his ashram in Kerala, which followed the East
Syrian form of Christianity. Dom Bede Griffiths was very concerned
with the meeting of different religions, and during the meditations
that took place in his Ashram, we read from Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist
texts, because he fervently believed that the mystical insights
to be found in all religions, point to a common experience of Reality.
Earlier this
year I was deeply shocked by the destruction of the great Bamiyan
Buddha statues by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. I was concerned
because once again this symbolic gesture of a Muslim fundamentalist
group, expressed itself through an act of destruction, based on
a belief that all Idols are wrong. As a believer, and an artist
myself, I do not reject this criticism of images. I believe that
some of the most important movements in culture, and in art too,
have come out of iconoclasm. I have a deep respect for Islam, and
am moved by their rich artistic traditions, that were inspired by
Islamic principles of Unity and Simplicity. I have on several occasions
dreamt of myself entering in a mosque in order to worship, and I
feel very close to the Islamic form of spirituality. And yet I am
not only a believer in images, but a maker of them. The great Buddha
figure of Bamiyan was for me a manifestation of all that I affirm
as a believer in the Cosmic Person, whose enlightened body is both
the "Buddha Kshetra"(field of enlightenment) and also
an image of the Cosmic Christ. In fact the Mahayana movement within
Buddhism which gave rise to this giant figure of the Buddha Being,
in the 5th century of our common era, was itself a manifestation
of a movement that came out of a civilization which had begun to
see the human person in a different way. Here the humanism of the
Greeks mingled with the spiritual vision of the Far East. In this
Himalayan melting pot of many cultures, on the ancient "silk
route," linking East to West, a new kind of art, known as the
art of Gandhara, came into existence, which represented the meeting
of civilizations. The first attempt to destroy these images was
made by the soldiers of Chenghis Khan, whose fighters slaughtered
millions in Central Asia in the 13th Century. As iconoclasts they
could not achieve what the militia of the Taliban could manage in
Bamiyan, simply because they did not have the technology, or the
weaponry. One might add here that the very destruction of this image
of Cosmic Humanity, indicates a rejection of that understanding
of Incarnation, or Divinized humanity, which is also the basis for
believing in the presence of God in human beings. There lies at
the heart of what one might call Terrorism, a disregard for human
life as "made in the image of God".
As I see it,
the destruction of the two towers of the World Trade Centre in Manhattan
is another act of iconoclasm. It is a gesture similar in intent
to what happened when earlier the Taliban destroyed images that
represented one of the most important periods of the history of
the civilization to which we all belong. But let us remember that
these destroyers of images are not just anti-culture. Rather they
are destroying a culture of which in a way they themselves are inheritors.
I remember seeing the paintings of some of the refugees of Afghanistan
in Delhi, in the 1980's, and being struck by their natural artistic
sense, rather similar to what I had observed in Kashmir. The Taliban
form of religious extremism is reacting to something that is inherent
in their own cultural programming. Even St John Damascene remarks
in his work on the Defense of the Holy Images, that God forbade
the Jewish people from worshipping images, because they were so
inclined to worship them. After all, even Abraham, the father of
those Faiths, which believe that God is beyond images, came from
a family of image makers.
As has often
been pointed out, western culture has many of its roots in Islam.
The flowering of Islamic culture which took place in science, philosophy,
art and poetry, about a thousand years ago, came out of the iconoclasm
which lies at the heart of the Koran, and which profoundly influenced
the whole development of western medieval thought from Thomas Aquinas
onwards. Cistercianism would not have been possible without this
interaction with the culture of Islam. In fact we could say that
the "Crusades" which were a terrible Christian attack
on a culture which was, in many respects, superior to what existed
at that time in Europe, had the strange effect of profoundly influencing
European civilization. The Crusaders, by bringing back to their
homelands insights into spirituality which they found in the East,
inspired sensitive souls like Bernard of Clairvaux and Francis of
Assisi who recognized the essential Truth and Beauty to be found
in the vision of Islam. The question which we continue to face concerns
where to draw the dividing line between that iconoclasm which rejects
those elements in a culture which are an enslaving force, and the
violence which hurts human beings. Are all iconoclasts terrorists
? Those Muslims who invaded India destroying not only temples, but
also communities that believed in these images, brought terror in
their wake. Many in history have been willing to die, in order to
defend their holy images. Now it is possible that the allied forces
which want to rid the world of terrorism by attacking Afghanistan,
and other Muslim states which have defended their right to reject
idolatry, will also kill and injure many poor and innocent people
in the process. When an image is attacked, it is not only the object
which is being destroyed, but also a sense of identity. I suspect
that the anger and pain which Americans are feeling just now, is
a mixture not only of empathy for those who were killed in the terrorist
attack, but also a rage that very important symbols of what they
stood for have been destroyed.
What we are
calling "Western Civilization" which is supposed to be
in conflict with some other form of civilization to be found in
the East, is really confronted today not by the belief systems of
Islam or Judaism, but perhaps even more fundamentally by a "polytheism"
which springs from the Far East. This belief in many gods challenges
that kind of civilization which is intolerant of the beliefs of
others, and insists that only its own understanding of Reality and
Truth is valid. In a way, what we are seeing in American society
today is a fundamentalism more chilling in its ruthlessness than
anything coming out of Islam. Here, a particular model of society
is being projected as the only true one, and in order to get everyone
to follow this model, a nation is willing to launch an attack against
other cultures on a massive scale, ultimately killing far more innocent
people than were ever killed in America. In other words we have
pitted against the terrorism of individual extremists, or small
groups, the mighty terror of the most powerful state on earth. Why
globalization is so resented in many parts of the world is because
it is an attempt of one particular cultural tradition, to impose
its will, and its thirst for power, on the whole world. What perhaps
many wonder today is whether the real casualty coming out of recent
events, will be a belief in free democracy. In order to defend western
civilization from attacks by extremist terrorists, a whole system
of intrusive surveillance, or intelligence, will have to be put
in place, which will make sure, not only that violent acts are prevented,
but even the criticisms that underlie these acts of violence, are
also silenced. As the psychologist Rollo May pointed out in his
work "Innocence and Violence", violent acts are often
the last resort of those who are not heard, or even recognized.
The
image of the Two Cities
History has
its own symbolism; it is fond of significant dates. We are persuaded
that for a long time to come the date September 11, 2001 will be
remembered in this way. The events of that day were certainly startling
enough, but we must remember that the terrorism, that was made so
visible by the drama of that day, was by no means something new.
Many have been the victims of terrorism, especially in Asia, and
terrorist acts have previously taken place even in the United States,
perpetrated by individuals who have nothing to do with Islam. What
shocked the world into recognizing this force was the realization
that the most powerful nation in the world today was not immune
from such attacks. Perhaps, precisely because of its gigantic strength,
the U.S.A. and American citizens, have become especially the targets
of this hidden force, which springs from a resentment lying in the
hearts of embittered individuals. The grief that this attack has
caused in America is as much a result of realizing, and yet not
being able to comprehend, this hatred in the hearts of some, for
what Americans have believed is the ideal type of society. What
has made this particular attack so memorable is not only its scale,
or the spontaneous reaction it has evoked from all round the world,
as its symbolic meaning, and also its timing. Certain events assume
such a significance, that they almost step out of what we normally
understand as "History", taking on the form of a "Kairos",
or moment of Revelation, assuming thereby an almost mythical function.
The twin towers
of the World Trade Centre, together with the Pentagon, which is
the seat of military command, touch the imagination of a whole people
for whom these buildings carry the power of icons. The destruction
of these structures, has a kind of iconoclastic force, which shocks
in the same way that the destruction of something held to be particularly
sacred would do. The fact that this act was done by some individuals
fired by a messianic zeal, in the face of a nation which has itself
assumed a messianic role, as a savior of the civilized world, has
made this daring gesture even more poignant. The reaction was immediate.
This criminal act, it is now being claimed, is not only an injury
to one nation, but is directed against the whole civilized world.
Precisely because this drama has been projected through the all-seeing
eye of modern media, on such a panoramic screen, like something
out of a Hollywood film, that the reaction seems to have lost a
sense of scale, or proportion. It is as though History is now being
compelled to imitate art. The "virtual" and the "actual"
seem to have got confused. To punish the perpetrators of this crime,
a whole people are being targeted, and so in the end many more innocent
lives will be destroyed as an act of retribution. History is being
used to create a mythic scenario. Something portentous and apocalyptic
is being invoked.
As these events
unfold, my mind goes back to a book that has fascinated me as an
artist: "The City of God" by St. Augustine. When Augustine,
as the Bishop of Hippo was already 59 years old, news reached him
in his north African diocese, about cataclysmic events which had
taken place in far away Italy. On August 24, 410, the city of Rome
had been sacked and pillaged by uncivilized tribesmen for three
days. When the Barbarians led by Alaric, the war lord of the Goths,
finally retreated on the fourth day, leaving many massacred, and
the city in ruins, it was felt that this was the end of a whole
world order. Many feared that this was the beginning of the end
of a civilization, centred on the city of Rome. Augustine had studied
in Italy, and loved its culture. For him this civilization meant
all that he had acquired in the way of knowledge, and the admiration
of higher values. The fall of Rome was being attributed to a kind
of weakness, which was related to the spread of a new Religion---Christianity
itself. And so Augustine felt called upon to write a monumental
apology for his own Faith, while affirming at the same time, his
deep admiration for all that Rome had stood for. This took him more
or less the rest of his creative life, so that the book was only
completed after fifteen years. Of course, it would be dangerous
to draw too many parallels between what happened in Rome more than
fifteen centuries ago, and what we are witnessing today. But there
are some important similarities. The shock that the event caused
then, was not unlike the present feeling of absolute disbelief.
The sense that a whole civilization was under assault, and a feeling
that barbaric forces were at play, and that chaos was immanent---all
have played an important part in the reactions which we have witnessed
over the last week.
It is not only
the actual suffering, the destruction of life and property, which
is the concern. It is more fundamentally a problem of meaning. "What
does all this mean for the future?" is the question that comes
to the mind of everyone. Is this just the beginning of processes,
half recognized, but perhaps never properly confronted, which are
now made more explicit, pointing to effects which seem hard to avoid.
It is interesting to note the kind of language which is being used,
the continual problem of parents who say that they are struggling
to answer questions which their children are asking---"what
is this all about ?" Many seem to answer that it is about the
struggle of good against evil. But it does not seem to be quite
so easy as that, as though reality could be reduced to such black
and white alternatives. Is this conflict just between the good guys,
and the "baddies," where the bad people are always the
outsiders, those who belong to another strange culture, and who
speak another language, and think in a different way. Augustine
himself, though he renounced the tenants of the Manichaean Faith
which had been so important to him before his conversion, often
returned to the kind of symbolic language of clear opposites which
is so characteristic of the mythic world of the Manichaeans. The
stark opposition of two creative forces, one supposedly light, and
the other dark and destructive, can be discerned in the very rhetoric
underlying the concept of the "Two Cities". By extension,
the "Two Civilizations" which these cities represent,
are also being set one against the other, as though the one is ideal,
and the other, only an earthly and imperfect reflection of it. It
is this language of good against evil, order against chaos, which
has once again surfaced in the outpourings of a Mr. Bush or a Mr.
Tony Blair.
I think it is
necessary to revert again to the essential issues that are being
addressed by St. Augustine in his work on the "City of God".
After all, he is the thinker whose ideas about a "Just War",
not to mention "Original Sin" have often been misused
over the centuries to justify a very dark and judgmental view of
human nature. But still, reading again his affirmation of all that
is good and noble in the civilization that he so admired, one cannot
help but respond to the idealism of a man who could have written
his famous chapter on Peace (Book XIX, 13) as the very basis for
a just society, and a true civilization. What he saw as the beginning
of the ruin of Rome was not just the terror of the Goth Alric, but
a seed of destruction that lay hidden in the very rottenness of
that civilization of which Rome was the apogee. It was the decadence
of Rome, more than the rigour of the invader, which brought down
the edifice. Rome had become weak because it had failed its own
ideals---it was this weakness of Rome that almost invited its nemesis.
Commenting
on this Vernon J. Bourke writes :
Augustine's message is not without optimism ; he obviously felt
that some measure of earthly peace had been achieved in the better
days of the Empire. Yet it is a mistake to take the City of God
as a charter for an earthly kingdom. This was a mistake made by
Charlemagne and his associates, who thought to realize the Heavenly
City in the Holy Roman Empire. Still, out of the impetus of the
civilization and political states, which they established to fill
the void left by the destruction of Rome have developed the social
and political institutions of modern Europe and America.
Etienne
Gilson comments :
The preaching and teaching of Christ was in no way compatible
with the duties and rights of citizens; for, to quote an instance
frequently alleged, among its precepts there is found : "Do
not repay injury with injury", and 'if a man strikes thee
on thy right cheek, turn the other cheek also towards him : if
he is ready to go to law with thee over thy coat, let him have
it and thy cloak with it ; if he compels thee to attend him on
a mile's journey, go two miles with him." Now, it seems clear
that such moral norms could not be put into practice without bringing
ruin to a country. Who would suffer without retaliation the seizure
of his goods by an enemy? Would anyone, thenceforth, refuse to
punish according to the laws of war the devastation of a Roman
province? These are arguments with which we are familiar, and
which are constantly being revived by "conscientious objectors"
St Augustine
argues that these essential values of the Gospel are not only peculiar
to Christianity, but are essential to religion at its highest and
foundational for the ideal City in which Justice as well as Peace
are supposed to reign. The question which we need to ask today,
is: Are these values of Peace what lie at the heart of the kind
of Civilization which Bush or Blair are advocating? Is their call
to retribution and revenge in any way Christian
.or even religious
? And so what are the clashing civilizations which they are talking
about ? The values that they seem to advocate are no different from
the terrorist barbarians whom they decry. In other words, the destruction
of the ideal city which is being symbolized by this act of terrorism
is as much a consequence of the failure to establish an order of
Justice and Peace within the institutions of the City, and the Civilization,
as an intervention from some evil force coming from outside. Terrorism
is a seed of destruction that comes from the ambiguity lying within
a culture; it is the shadow thrown by a civilization. In order to
deal with this terror, we have to own it as our own. To simply project
it on an "enemy" is to increase its power to corrupt,
by worming its way into the very heart of a civilization, through
the spread of resentment as opposed to peace.
Seeds
of Chaos
What we are
really dealing with here is not just a matter concerning buildings,
or those who work in them. Rather we are looking at movements related
to the condition of the human mind. What one feels so deeply sad
about on occasions like this is the abdication of that cultural
rooting in a belief in peace, that is so evident in the way destructive
impulses are aroused; not only in those who perpetrate these acts
of violence, but even in the resentful reactions of those who feel
that they are the victims.
One of the ideas
behind the recent understanding of Chaos is that vast conditions
in our environment can be affected by very small changes. The picturesque
image that is suggested is that of the flapping of a butterfly's
wings, which supposedly can even change the weather, giving rise
to a terrible storm. The nature of that kind of turbulence which
we call chaos, is that it is additive, and cumulative. One reaction
leads to another in geometric progression, so that the nail that
is missing in the horse's shoe, is finally the reason why a great
battle is lost. The symbolic power of events like the one which
we witnessed on the 11th of September, lies precisely in the way
that such events have the capacity to create chaos. This, we are
told, is the result of a new kind of war, though actually there
is nothing so ancient as this understanding of violence springing
from what is regarded by the strong as insignificant and the mere
expression of the weak. It is the very asymmetry, or imbalance of
power that gives rise to this turbulence whose scope is ultimately
cosmic. Many myths discuss precisely this state, where the proud
tyrant is over thrown by a weak child, or dwarf. Remember even the
image of the young David throwing his stone at the giant, Goliath.
The City, and
Civilization as a whole, has much in common with principles which
are discussed in relation to ecology. That is because these social
structures are based on the same rules of systemic growth as we
find in nature. If diversity is an essential feature of the natural
world that we observe around us, a pluralism and rich tapestry of
cultures is ultimately essential for the health of a city. The moment
barriers are set up against those who are deemed to be "outsiders",
limiting the free inter action of those who are within the city
walls, resentment sets in, and this leads to the eventual over throw
of a whole civilization. The very Truth which we hope for in a State,
is that it is strong enough to allow a process of questioning from
within. It is because we are living in an increasingly divided world,
which talks about free trade, but does not respect religious and
cultural diversity, that the very fabric of the modern city is in
danger of being pulled apart.
Here we need
to take a closer look at the way in which minorities within a culture
are treated. Already the fear of the terrorist who is like a hidden
enemy, has led to many citizens being targeted, and abused. The
test which we are now witnessing, concerns the real values of a
civil society. Has it room for religious diversity ? Is it defined
as a kind of mono-culture? The root issue which confronts the world
today is one of identity. Post modernism which in many ways lies
under many of the assumptions behind globalization, and the market
economy, questions the meaning of the self. It is perhaps a new
form of totalitarianism, which fears the individual. Religion has
also been used as a basis for patriotism. In India we can see how
an effort is being made to turn Hinduism into a State religion.
To be a true Indian you are supposed to represent Hindu civilization.
The Islamic state also uses religious identity to define itself
as over and against the others. The same problem seems to underlie
the way in which Zionism has been turned into an instrument of Terror
for Palestinians. Are we in fact looking at this essential rift
between Civil Society as it is emerging out of a post modern globalization,
and the earlier model of Nation States? Somewhere along this fault
line, terrorism breeds.
If we believe
in the civilization that has given rise to our modern world, we
should not just tolerate differences, but need to celebrate diversity.
This certainly was one of the important features of the kind of
society that the United States of America has aspired towards. But,
almost in the wake of its own prosperity, its own increasing eminence
as a super power in the world of today, the fact that many citizens
of this emerging society want to monopolize, and possess their own
good fortune, is the beginning of the fall. An earthly city can
be an image of a heavenly city, but it can also become an idol.
I think it is important to return to those insights of a prophetic
Faith which warned a proud and headstrong people that the very providence
which gave them all that they have, can also be the author of their
own destruction. The signs which we need to read in our own times,
do not point in the direction of an imagined enemy "out there"
in the wilderness, but to a reckoning which comes from the centre
of our own heart.
Art
and Violence
As mentioned
earlier in these pages, Violence is often not directed at persons,
but at objects. These objects are seen to have a symbolic significance
in that they objectify deeply held values within a society. Sometimes
the very destruction of an object can be an expression of the value
given to it. Most ancient religious systems believe that an image
is so potent that it should not remain visible for too long. Thus
images are veiled, buried, even destroyed as part of a ritual of
first of all manifesting the image, and then hiding it by removing
all traces of its presence. Many forms of daily household rituals
are linked to this deep seated fear of the image as having power,
and the "cleansing" of a home is linked magically to the
removal of traces, which in some mysterious way carry memories,
or tracks which need to be hidden. Making ones bed, by smoothing
out the sheets, and re-arranging the pillows is not just a matter
of "hygiene" understood in a very rational sense of keeping
everything tidy. The underlying magical reason for making a bed,
is that the place where we sleep carries a kind of "image"
of something very personal and secret, and therefore has to be re-made
in order to protect a private world from being "seen"
by others. In the same way we might want to remove traces of finger
prints, or foot marks so as to keep our movements secret. This tendency
obviously goes back to very ancient impulses, which are even found
in the animal world, where signs of presence are protected against
those who might be predators.
An interesting
example of this ritual of removing traces is the way in which designs
especially connected with the protection of home against spirits,
as in threshold patterns (I am thinking of Kolams, or Rangoli designs
in South India, for example) are drawn as a daily act which has
to be removed, covered over, and then redrawn so as to keep these
patterns effective. At a more sophisticated level, we find Tantric
traditions of drawing the Mandala (as for example in the Lamaistic
rituals of Tibetan Buddhism) where a symbolic image which represents
the underlying plan of the whole Cosmos is drawn with great care,
and then ritually destroyed, for fear that it will get into the
wrong hands. In folk cultures we see this tendency in various festivals
where images of Divine presences are created, and then removed after
a set number of days, as part of the festival period. Take, for
example, the Christmas Tree, which is decorated, and loved during
the twelve days of Christmas, but then on the last day, the day
in fact of Epiphany, the tree is dismantled, and its decorations
stored and hidden away for the next year, while the tree itself
is thrown out, even burnt. In Indian folk culture the festival of
Ganesh Chathurthi shows the same pattern of ritual destruction related
to the image. The form of Ganapatti is first of all made out of
clay, or some other natural material, and then after a period of
festivity, the image is carried in procession and ritually immersed
in water, so that it dissolves, and is no longer visible.
It is interesting
in this context to further note how much aggression, and even overt
iconoclasm this act of ritual destruction releases against other
symbols of religious belief. Often in the very act of taking out
a procession, to carry the image to the place where it is to be
immersed, or buried, the whole community which is preparing itself
for this sense of "loss" seems to get possessed by a destructive
impulse which vents itself on acts of destruction in connection
with the symbols of other Faith communities. It is as if the very
act of destroying an image, becomes infectious, and a community
proceeds to destroy other images in a general fervor which wants
to express its feelings by cleansing the whole environment of every
sign of religious identity. In other words the act of destruction
in order to hide or protect what is held to be most sacred, leads
on to a general attack on images that are thought to signify the
presence of other religious identities which are considered as a
"threat".
This background
to the motivation behind the destruction of images is necessary
for us to understand if we are to focus on the sociological implications
of iconoclastic acts. When, to take another example, an image of
a demon is made and then ceremonially destroyed, it is obviously
felt that the destruction of the image will harm that which is represented.
In festivals like Dusshera the image of the giant demon king Ravana
is made, and then destroyed as an act of war against the forces
of darkness and evil in society. The same impulse is the basis for
the festivities of Guy Falkes in Europe, which again draws from
very primal belief systems that attributes to the image a significance
deriving from the power of that which is represented. In recent
times images of the American President, or the flag of America,
have been publicly burnt or otherwise defaced as an expression of
hatred for a whole society which these symbols represent. Such acts
have repercussions which are being politely called "co-lateral
damage". That is to say, whether it is the terrorist individual
attacking a symbol of the oppressive state, or in response the oppressive
state attacking the symbol of individual rebel, many innocent people
are likely to get injured in the process. The target may in fact
be an object, but in so far as such objects are held to be sacred
by those who believe in them, people and their lives are also under
threat. Every iconoclastic act, which aims to destroy some object,
also hurts, both physically and psychically, those who have invested
this object with a real power and meaning. In that sense every act
of iconoclasm is also an act of war or physical conflict.
In this regard
it is also perhaps important for us to note the link between iconoclasm
and that religious motivation which underlies Sacrifice. Sacrifice
begins naturally in human sacrifice---it is an act of offering life.
But as civilizations have advanced, there has been a growing belief
that it is not necessary to sacrifice life itself, only what it
represents. In other words the real taking of a life has been substituted
by a symbol of that life. This begins with the offering of an animal,
or some other precious object, which is felt to be representative
of the life which is present in a human being, or in a whole community.
A symbol is offered as an "act of sacrifice". Even when
the image of Ganesh is being immersed in the primal waters from
whose mud his image was first fashioned, it is as an act of sacrifice
that we must understand this gesture. Sacrifice is always linked
to creation. Sacrifice returns a community to the beginning, in
order to re-discover its origins. But in order to effect this return
to the beginning, what is now has to be destroyed.
Sacrifice has
always been deemed as different from murder. And yet the boundary
between taking a life as a ritual sign and taking a life as an act
of revenge is very difficult to draw. When Cain killed Abel, he
was in a way sacrificing Abel, because God had accepted the sacrifice
of Abel and not Cain. Murder always begins with jealousy and resentment.
But what we are calling "civilizations" use the imagery
of Sacrifice to address a deeper problem which concerns the very
origin of evil in the world. Evil is that force in Creation which
has distorted, or destroyed the true "likeness" which
creation has to its primal proto-type in the mind of the Creator.
And so every sacrifice is an attempt to destroy evil in order to
re-affirm, or re-discover the prototype. An act of sacrifice does
not only want to destroy, it also wants to re-create, to be a foundational
impulse in the generation of a new heaven and a new earth. That
is the meaning given for example to the "Just War". The
war is a collective sacrifice, which includes the offering of many
lives, in an effort to create a Just society, which is in the image
of that Divine Prototype which is imaged as the "City of God".
The relation
of art to ethics, which is based on the deeper concern of what we
hold to be "good", and consequently "beautiful",
concerns these basic issues related to what is being "imaged".
Is the image that of a Divine prototype, in accordance with the
Divine Will, or is the image just a replica of a human power, which
by its very nature is an effort to usurp, to appropriate something
belonging to the Creator. Every dictator sets a human agent up in
the place of the Divine. This is the root of all idolatry. It is
a defacement, an abuse of the Divine Image by those who want to
make themselves equal to God. In this simple fact we observe the
basis for a theology of the image, and also an understanding of
the central importance of the image in an understanding of what
we mean when we say that the human being is made in the image of
God.
So art and conflict
cannot easily be dis-entangled. Art stands for peace, in that it
is only in a state of peace that art and culture can flourish in
any civilization. But art also emerges out of a deep human longing
for Justice, and this Justice demands a kind of iconoclasm which
rejects the false image, the image which has been appropriated by
those who are in power, simply to serve their own selfish ends.
One of the most powerful images of a Creator God, represents the
play of Creation as a Divine Dance. In that dance, the Lord is both
the infinitely beautiful, infinitely protective and loving Creator
of all that we see around us, but also, and this must never be forgotten,
the Great Destroyer. It is on this account that every work of art,
is also in some mysterious way, also a work of destruction. Destruction
and Creation are inter-twined, for that is the mystery of a world
in which life and death are not just opposites, but rather complement
each other. This, let us be careful to always say, does not give
human beings a license to kill. But it does demand of every creative
individual, and by extension, every creative effort to establish
here on earth an image of the City of God, a sense of discrimination,
viveka. Civilization as a human project, is of necessity concerned
with the problem of evil. Every civilization, as we have argued
earlier, carries within itself its own seed of destruction. A civilization
is not something God has made. Rather it is something very human,
which attempts to mirror that Divine Order which came into play
at Creation. Civil society is itself an image of that communion,
and just order which is the basis of the Divine City in which not
only human beings, but the whole of Creation is mirrored. Part of
the evil that we can observe in our earthly city relates to the
way in which our civilization destroys its natural environment.
The city here on earth is daily becoming a source of contamination,
breeding an unjust state of affairs where not only nature and its
resources are being abused, but also the image of God in every human
being is daily attacked. It is this evil of the city which is the
real cause of the downfall of our civilization.
However, in
this present time of conflagration, it is important that artists
and other creative thinkers play an active part. The image has the
power to heal, precisely because it has the power to bridge the
gap between the actual and the virtual. Because the artist is involved
continually between these two realities of dream and reality, inner
and outer, it is more possible for this person to discriminate between
the reality and what it projects. In the present world of conflict
it is vital to remove the mask which obscures the Truth with a pretence
at being the truth. As an Aztek poet queries :
Life is but
a mask worn on the face of death
And is death, then but another mask ?
Perhaps it is
the function of the artist to unmask the terrible face of death,
in a world where so many have lost the power to distinguish the
real from the unreal.
(The
essay is being published in a collection of essays in honour of
Fr. Michael Amalados sj, to celebrate his 65th birthday.
© Jyoti Sahi, Art Ashram)
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